It is the end of the month, I know, but before we say goodbye to July, I want to celebrate another aspect of it. Since July is apparently National Culinary Arts Month, I thought, why not a recipe poem!?

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Poetic Sundays: A Recipe Poem

A recipe poem is exactly what it sounds like — it takes the structure of a recipe and adds a generous sprinkle of poetry. Think ingredients, instructions, timing, and even serving suggestions — all flavored with metaphor, emotion, and imagination.

It can be about anything — from chocolate chip cookies to courage, from actual dishes to entirely made-up moods. Part poem, part spell (as many recipes are), and often part memory (like the ones I try to recreate with my mom’s recipes).

So let’s cook one up together.

🍳 Step 1: Choose What You’re “Cooking”

Start by deciding what you’re making.
Is it:

🌼 A feeling — like joy, grief, or courage?
🌅 A moment — like a summer sunset or a rainy afternoon?
🍛 An actual dish — maybe one from your family’s kitchen?
✨ A made-up mood — like “Tuesday Blues Bake” or “Confidence Curry”?

This is your poem’s “dish” — the heart of your creation.

You can take one of two routes:
🔹 Real Recipe Path — Use an actual dish, layered with personal or cultural memory.

📝 Example (real recipe-inspired – from this earlier post):
This does call for ingredients more than a few
Ghee – a tablespoon will do
With couple of tsps of oil too
and one each of a cardamom, bay leaf, inch cinnamon, and a clove.

🔹 Metaphorical Recipe Path — Cook up an idea, using poetic imagery and emotion.

🧂 Step 2: Gather Your Ingredients

With your “dish” chosen — whether it’s a feeling, a memory, a made-up mood, or a real recipe — it’s time to gather your ingredients. These don’t have to be edible. Think metaphorically, emotionally, even playfully.

Here’s what you might include:

• A central theme or message — something worth savoring or sharing.
• A list of ingredients — literal or symbolic. These could be:
  • ✨Abstract: a pinch of patience, two dashes of daring, five crushed misunderstandings
  • 🌱 Concrete or Culinary: three sun-warmed tomatoes, a splash of coconut milk, ghee – a tablespoon will do
  • 🌠 Whimsical (my favorite kind!): a spoonful of starshine, one peeled moon, a handful of second chances
  • Personal/Cultural: a teaspoon of my father’s voice, a cinnamon stick passed down for years, one mom-memory, browned on both sides
• Sensory details — flavor, scent, texture, sound, color. Help the reader taste, feel, hear, see the moment.
• Imaginative verbs — don’t just “mix”; try whisk, crush, coax, simmer, swirl, explode.
• Poetic voice — playful, solemn, nostalgic, or tender.
• Optional seasonings — repetition, rhyme, rhythm, line breaks, surprise, or humor.
• Family secrets or cultural insights — inherited wisdom, rituals, or flavors passed through generations.

🧾 Step 3: Write the Instructions

💡 Think: “What do we do with these feelings, memories, or ingredients?“

Examples:

Use the familiar structure of recipes — but let the poetry take over.

For those metaphor-based poems:

• Stir sorrow into hope until smooth.
• Let courage rise in the warmth of silence.
• Bake joy at 400°F of memory until bubbling.
• Fold in forgiveness, gently, without overmixing.

And for food-based poems:

• Rinse the rice until it sighs.
• Add spices until the air remembers her.
• Let it come to a gentle boil — not angry, just firm.
• Cover, and wait. The waiting is part of the recipe.

🍽 Step 4: Serving Suggestions

Your final stanza can be a closing image, a punch-line, a twist, or a profound quiet truth.

Some examples:

• Serve warm, under a sky the color of honey.
• Best enjoyed in silence, beside an open window.
• Share with someone who knows the story without asking.

🌶 Optional Garnishes

Sprinkle on a few extra touches:

• A title like “Recipe for Forgiveness”, “Sunday Afternoon Stew”, or “How to Make Peace.”
• Notes or substitutions: If no laughter is available, substitute with music.
• Family cooking tips: My grandmother says the rice only softens when you do too.

You can also play with:

• Rhyme or repetition
• Enjambment or line breaks
• Alliteration, rhythm, or surprise

💬 Final Thought

As I mentioned earlier, recipe poems are part poem, part memory, part magic.
Like treasured family recipes, they can become heirlooms — shaped in verse, passed hand to hand, heart to heart.

They nourish — not just through food, but through feeling.

📚 For Further Reading and Inspiration

• I love these examples by 4th graders! These poems will amaze and delight you.
• More poems written in the form of recipes as well.
• These poems in my dix-deux post
• One previous recipe written in the form of a poem is here (needs improvement now that I look back at it).
• Mom-memories that is not quite a recipe poem but takes a culinary turn

My Recipe Poem Attempt (coming soon)

Here is this week’s attempt – a metaphorical one.

A Recipe for Courage
Fish for your strengths from murky mind-waters.
Gather thoughts, sift through them –
discard trash-self-talk seeds, heavy despair-stones
Gently fold fears in with a spoonful of bravery.
Simmer with a pinch of hope, some humor
Stir in vulnerability and grit.
Serve warm, garnished with trust!
~ Vidya Tiru @ LadyInReadWrites

(this poem also used dverse’s quadrille #228’s prompt – the word – fish – and edited my sunday scribblings post to add this poem)

Recently

On My Blog and Home-front

Since my last scribblings:

• True Survivors: Tales of Hope and Winged Wonders
• Filler Words, Babble, and the Magic of Yada Yada Yada
• Mind Over Matter: 10 Books Set in the Brain
• Unexpected Gems: Children’s Books That Deserve More Love
• Sunday Scribblings #231: A Wonderful Spoonful of Verses: Spoonerisms in Poetry

And the birds bid goodbye to us, leaving us with a literal (and metaphorical) empty nest. See the first linked post in the list above for more on it.

Upcoming

On My Blog and Home-front

Hope to post at least a couple of days this week. As for the home-front, I will be with a cousin this week during the day for most of the week while my fam will have to figure out the nitty-gritties of the everyday by themselves until I head back home in the evening. It has been a while since I have been away like this, so will be interesting to watch.

This Week’s Celebrations

The Literary and Close-to-it Celebrations

• The birthdays this week: Beatrix Potter on July 28th; Sharon Creech on July 29th; Emily Bronte on the 30th of July; July 31st is J. K . Rowling and Primo Levi; Herman Melville on August 1st; Isabel Allende and James Baldwin on the 2nd of August; Leon Uris and P. D. James birthdays on August 3rd
• It is Paperback Book Day on July 30,
• Then we have Spider-Man Day on the 1st of August!!
• While August 2nd is National Coloring Book Day

The Foodie Celebrations

• The 28th of July is National Milk Chocolate Day
• Followed by National Lasagna Day on the 29th of July
• Then we celebrate one of my favorite desserts with National Cheesecake Day on the 30th!!
• While the 31st of July is  National Avocado Day 
• August starts off sweet with National Raspberry Cream Pie Day on the 1st
• And more sugar follows with National Ice Cream Sandwich Day on the 2nd of August.
• While August 3rd is National Watermelon Day and National Grab Some Nuts Day

The Other Celebrations

• July 28th observes World Nature Conservation Day
• While the 29th is Rain Day along with National Lipstick Day and International Tiger Day 
• Followed by Share a Hug Day and International Day of Friendship (a UN holiday) on the 30th of July
• The 31st has an uncommon event for it is Uncommon Instrument Awareness Day
• While August 1st is World Scout Scarf Day and National Girlfriend Day
• The 2nd of August obseves Take a Penny/Leave a Penny Day 
• August 3rd is Clean Your Floors Day, as well as National Sisters Day, American Family Day, and National Friendship Day.
• August happens to be International Peace Month,  Family Fun Month, Happiness Happens Month,  Romance Awareness Month, and National Crayon Collection Month 

Wrapping up my Sunday Scribblings

So dear reader, this was it for this post. As always, appreciate and totally welcome your thoughts, comments, and suggestions on these scribblings on Sunday! And which of these days in this wonderful week do you plan to celebrate?

Linking this to the Sunday Post over at the Caffeinated Reviewer and the Sunday Salon and of course the UBC